The Buggati Veyron has been my favorite high performance sports car since I first set eyes on one. They are sheer power and speed. When topped out, they'll burn 1.33 gallons of gasoline per minute. You have to be quite rich to purchase one and to run the things.

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Reckon you could pass the 15 second test? Reckon you could pin a Veyron’s accelerator pedal against its backplate and hold it there for a full 15? Doesn’t sound much, does it, until you remember that this car gets to 100mph in something under 6 seconds. After 15 – assuming you’ve held your nerve – it’s well past 150mph and hurtling towards 200. Still sure you could do it?

For anyone who hasn't seen one in person yet: With the possible exception of the front grill's integration, the Veyron is one of the best styled cars I've ever seen. I've seen two up-close at the Bugatti dealer in Greenwich, CT. The design's impact on me was magnified by the fact that the poor thing isn't terribly photogenic. When I considered all that the shape has to achieve in an elegant, solid-feeling car that can hit 253mph in the hands of anyone with a civilian license, it became clear to me that this car is an incredible achievement. (Don't worry, Gordon Murray: the F1 is still tops in my book.)

Want the outside rear mirrors to match your new console? $27K. (If you'd like your mirrors to match the billet console, that'll set you back $53K)

Would you prefer the interior's aluminum trim to be anodized black? $40K.

How about leaving the carbon fiber body panels unpainted so that you can celebrate this new tech? Applying the requisite UV blockers and gloss will set you back $321K, $383K if you'd like a blue tint in these finishes.

The Super Sport needs new wheels every five tire changes (up from every three tire changes in the standard Veyron.) It takes BBS 30 hours of machining to make one wheel. As set of tires cost about $43K. The cost for a set of wheels and tires is $74K. (The tires are good for 10K miles, if you're careful -- could you be careful with such a car? The tires last about 12 minutes at top speed, a couple of minutes more than the car's fuel tank will allow it to sustain that speed.)

At 268 miles per hour, the car's top speed, the wheels' outer rims experience 3100G, which means the 28 gram tyre pressure monitor comes in at 128kg.

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Standing Start, also known as Launch Control, is a mode that allows modern performance cars to coordinate engine, transmission, chassis and wheel rotation control systems to assure the fastest possible acceleration from a standstill.

The neck-snapping procedure goes something like this:

-- The car is put in launch mode while it's at rest.

-- The brake pedal is held down.

-- The accelerator pedal is floored.

-- When the engine reaches the right rpm, the brakes are released.

-- All hell breaks loose.

Given the torque and grip of modern sports cars, coupled to the need to keep every one of their components as light as possible, using Launch pushes crucial systems to the limit (most manufacturers will void the warranty of a car that has been Launched too frequently.)

Here's part of an article on the Veyron SS by one of the better automotive journalists out there (keep in mind that Porsches are the most over-engineered sports cars around):

At the [Press premier] of the E60 BMW M5, we were allowed to do one launch-control start. After that, the reek of clutch was too much and the car felt like it would expire. Think that's an unfair comparison because the Bug[atti] uses a dual clutch tranny? When we ran a 911 Turbo S against the Atom V8 last month, the Porsche's PDK gearbox began to feel noticeably more sluggish after five standing starts.

The Bugatti has well over twice the torque of the Porsche, and yet it can run 100 potential half-shaft-slayers [in a day] without a problem. It's this attention to engineering excellence that defines all Veyrons, but especially the Super Sport.